Could opposition to radical employment law reform move up the union agenda?

The unions are expected to confront the Coalition Government on multiple fronts.

At last week’s Trades Union Congress in Brighton, unions “backed co-ordinated strike action by public sector workers over pay and opened up a new front in the industrial confrontation with the government after last year’s pensions dispute,” the Guardian reports.

It says that this motion “could lead to nearly 1.5 million employees in the health and local government sectors staging walkouts next spring if negotiations over pay break down.”

Cable’s aides were anxious not to sound triumphalist in rejecting the central plank of the Beecroft report, stressing that 80% of his recommendations had been adopted or were now subject to consultation. Tory ministers and the Institute of Directors were also content with the outcome.

City law firm Partner Michael Scutt argues that “the proposals do contain a great deal of potential unfairness though” (See Scutt’s post entitled Employment Reforms: Back to the Future? for full details of his argument).

For all the government’s talk that helping businesses to sack poor performing workers will make companies more productive, this is little more than a smokescreen to erode hard won rights. Making it easier for bad employers to get away with misconduct is not the way to kick start our economy and will not create a single new job.

Pricing unions out of the game?

However, it should be noted that any union opposition to radical employment law reform could be motivated as much by unions’ concerns for their own future, as for the rights of their members.

Some of the Coalition Government’s employment reforms that are already set to come into effect are likely to have an impact on the trade unions.

It may be that some senior trade unionists are at last starting to consider a collective response [on employment law reform]. If so, this is not before time. Not only are individual claimants in the Coalition’s firing sights, so undoubtedly are the unions themselves. [...] For many years, unions have marketed themselves to potential members on the basis of benefits including protection, amounting to legal insurance, where a worker is dismissed. But the Coalition’s reforms will price unions out of the game.

In Renton’s view, the introduction of fees for employment tribunals could hit unions hard:

Most trade unions have a legal budget, which has to cover more than just Tribunal claims, of around £10 per member per year. [With the introduction of employment tribunal fees, we could be] reaching the point where unions might no longer be able to offer representation to their members.

XpertHR reports that “the Ministry of Justice says it will seek to implement the amended fee structure in summer 2013.”

We noted above that – according to comments from Vince Cable’s aides, as reported by the Guardian – some “80%” of Adrian Beecroft’s recommendations for employment law survive, despite the ‘death’ of his no-fault dismissal proposals.

XpertHR economic commentary September 2012: Triple-dip recession in prospect? XpertHR’s economic commentary for September 2012 assesses prospects for growth and the possibility of a “triple-dip recession.” We also look at the likely resurgence in trade union activity in autumn 2012, and report on latest readings on key economic indicators, including inflation, pay awards and unemployment.

Is the Coalition Government waging a ‘war on how we work’? The Coalition Government’s approach to employment law reform could be viewed as a “war on how we work”, argues Sunday Telegraph Business Editor Kamal Ahmed. Ahmed says that these reforms are ultimately intended to enshrine a view that – at its simplest – “employers should be allowed to get on with managing their companies.” Here we take a look at recent employment law reform proposals and consider how they relate to Ahmed’s theory and assess the potential impact of some of these proposals on economic growth.

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